News tagged with domestication

"Just call the police, they have to do something," is sometimes the advice given to a woman who reveals that she is a victim of intimate partner violence (IPV), more commonly called domestic violence. The th ...

Twenty-five years ago it was a military zone where occupying Soviet troops held exercises. Today it's a sanctuary inhabited by wild animals that scientists hope will improve biodiversity among local plants ...

Infectious disease should be a key consideration in wildlife conservation, suggests a study focused on primates in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park, published by PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The st ...

A University of Utah study of nearly 2,000-year-old livestock teeth show that early herders from northern Africa could have traveled past Kenya's Lake Victoria on their way to southern Africa because the ...

An international team of researchers led by scientists at the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) genetically describe the first kobuviruses to be reported from Africa. The results ...

Scientists from Berlin successfully produced embryos from African lions via assisted reproduction. What is genuinely new is the fact that they used immature eggs that were retrieved from African lionesses. ...

Because reducing the impacts of feral cats—domestic cats that have returned to the wild—is a priority for conservation efforts across the globe, a research team recently reviewed the animals' diet across Australia and ...

While many people have considered how to care for homes and people during bushfires, they haven't always decided on a plan of action to protect threatened domestic animals, livestock and wildlife, says the ...

Scientists from Jiangxi Agricultural University, BGI and University of California published their latest research on genetic mechanism of pig altitude-adaptations in Nature Genetics online. Their research underlined the im ...

Domestication

Domestication (from Latin domesticus) or taming refers to the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. A defining characteristic of domestication is artificial selection by humans. Some species such as the Asian Elephant, numerous members of which which have for many centuries been used as working animals, are not domesticated because they have not normally been bred under human control, even though they have been commonly tamed. Humans have brought these populations under their care for a wide range of reasons: to produce food or valuable commodities (such as wool, cotton, or silk), for help with various types of work (such as transportation or protection), for protection of themselves and livestock, to enjoy as companions or ornamental plant, and for scientific research, such as finding cures for certain diseases.

Plants domesticated primarily for aesthetic enjoyment in and around the home are usually called house plants or ornamentals, while those domesticated for large-scale food production are generally called crops. A distinction can be made between those domesticated plants that have been deliberately altered or selected for special desirable characteristics (see cultigen) and those domesticated plants that are essentially no different from their wild counterparts (assuming domestication does not necessarily imply physical modification). Likewise, animals domesticated for home companionship are usually called pets while those domesticated for food or work are called livestock or farm animals.